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Updated: June 29, 2025
A perpetual twilight reigned beneath the dense foliage supported by the rank soil, and our hearts beat a few more pulsations to the minute, as we left the scorching glare of the noon day sun, and plunged into the gloomy fastnesses of the bear and alligator; to these latter gentlemen, whose clumsy forms were sprawling through the mud on every side, we gave no further heed other than to keep without the range of the deadly sweep of their powerful tails, with which they bring their unsuspecting prey within reach of their saw-like jaws; the bears we did not happen to meet, or we should most assuredly have given them some of the balls designed for the panthers.
Whether true slum children, or from streets a little better off, quickly they all pass out of youth into the iron drive of commerce and manufacture, into the clang and clatter, the swish and whirr of wheels, the strange, dragging, saw-like hubbub of industry, or the clicking and pigeon-holes of commerce; perch on a devil's see-saw from monotonous work to cheap sensation and back.
In the morning they dragged me to the valley, and tying my feet, with a long rope, to a tree, put a flat stone with a saw-like edge in my left hand. I shifted it to the right; they kicked me, and put it again in the left; gave me to understand that I was to scrape the bark off every branch that had no fruit on it; kicked me once more, and left me.
"Look, look!" exclaimed Florry Meldrum, "the thresher isn't alone; what are those long-nosed fishes swimming about under the whale? They seem to be helping the other one!" "You're right, Florry," said her father, "they are swordfish. What you think are their noses are long projecting saw-like blades, and they are the whale's deadliest enemy.
The thrasher, which has a back as elastic as an india-rubber ball, would jump clean out of the water and give the whale a whack in the ribs that must have taken all the elasticity out of him; and then, on the poor leviathan of the deep fluking his tail to dive so as to escape from his aerial antagonist, his chum the swordfish would tickle up the whale from below by sending a yard or two of his long saw-like snout into his tenderest part.
Montserrat is famous throughout Spain on account of its statue of the Virgin, which is supposed to have been made by S. Luke, and brought to Barcelona in the year 50 by S. Peter, which, of course, is nonsense. S. Luke never painted, and S. Peter never visited Spain. This extraordinary mountain derives its name from its saw-like appearance, Mons serratus.
The flint implements of Grand-Pressigny, of which specimens can be seen in all the museums of Europe, are some sixteen inches long, of light color, pointed at one end and square at the other. One face is rough, the other chipped into three oblong pieces, whilst the sides are roughly hewn into saw-like teeth.
The Professor was clean-shaven, wore his hair cut very short, and from his hat to his boots he was spotless; but somehow or other there was a suggestion that the profession of Sanskrit did not result in the possession of wealth, for the Professor's hat was not so new as it had been once, one of his well-polished boots had a smile in its upper leather just where the little toe pressed outwards, there was a suggestion about his very stiff shirt-collar of the growth of saw-like teeth that might be very unpleasant if they came in contact with his ears, while his tightly buttoned-up frock-coat, which looked very nice in front, had grown extremely shiny in two places at the back where the wearer's blade-bones were prominent.
The above-quoted description, though short and superficial, is sufficient to indicate some of the chief difficulties of the swordsmith's art, and it sets one thinking, too, as to the various uses to which cutting instruments are put, and gradations of hardness, from the high temper of razors and certain chisels to the low temper of hunters' and sailors' knives, which should always be of rather soft steel, for they are sharpened more easily, and the saw-like edge is better suited for cutting flesh, ropes, etc., than a very fine edge would be.
But the sharks still cruised alongside and now and again one bolder than the others would turn partly on his back and nose up against the raft, showing his cruel, saw-like teeth and monstrous mouth as he did so. "I don't wonder they call them sea-tigers," said Frank, "more terrible looking monsters I never saw." The tropic night soon closed and darkness shut down with great rapidity.
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